DWx

Depends which class I go to: Thurs class (1st hour is sparring and fitness for any grade, 2nd hour is a blackbelt technical session) warm up - jogging, sit ups, press ups, squats, light punching and kicking etc. sometimes have to run around the field instead if its dry enough sparring - do drills on pads or against a partner before going into a free sparring mode fitness and cardio work - involves lots of sprinting, skipping and bodyweight exercises cool down at end of 1st session warm up again for 2nd class mainly involves patterns and sometimes step sparring application work squad session (3hrs): warm up - same as above but tends to be a higher intensity patterns - spend about 1hr working as an individual and on team sparring - good hr drilling combinations on pads then time after that to put it into practice in free sparring cardio/endurance - lots of sprinting and bodyweight exercises cool down Uni Club (2hr): warm up - lots of running around line work - usually a couple of techniques and combos, sometimes against pads then we do one or two forms and a bit of free sparring before cooling down

Welcome!

Congrats! My home county

Congrats to everyone

So that's where all my hubcaps went!!! j/k Pretty cool. Must have spent ages collecting them.

Average for us is around 3.5 years. You can actually get it in 1 year / 18 months but you'd have to do several hours a day all week and I've never known anyone to acheive this.

Awesome! I have got to make me some of those

This very thing totally confused me when I started looking at things outside of my ITF TKD (this forum included). I was like "how can you not know what the techniques are?" "why are you even doing it if you don't know what they're for or how they're applied?". Obviously now I know better but I couldn't understand why you kata guys were trying to work the bunkai of your forms. The forms I do are relatively modern and each move has a purpose as laid out by their creator so it just seemed totally wierd that you were figuring out the bunkai.

I think you'd find it very hard to find a video like that. Tai Chi isn't exactly something that would work well in competition because the majority of it is just redirecting with little striking or moves that would bring about a submission. By the way, just outta interest, what style of Tai Chi will your character use? There are slight nuances between styles which could affect how he fights. Found some more videos: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vnIvfIaKFJ4

I used to eat more than I should as a kid.. I think a lot of it came from staying at my gran's during the holidays. What kid is going to say no to chocolate biscuits every half hour?!? Now I don't have that great appetite and I eat just enough so my weight is constant. Am still above my ideal (fighting) weight though but should begin to lose that soon as I pay a lot of attention to what I eat and what exercise I do.. Problem comes when I am under stress for like exams etc. I tend to snack on stuff as a method of procrastination.

Try looking at these for Tai Chi applications: http://youtube.com/watch?v=XabhNyfqVGk The first one's particularly good as its the applications for the 24 form which most people learn (and probably yourself if you do it at college). Its probably best to go train in it yourself as to understand the finer points you need to really be practicing it.

It was the style Norris created. I've heard of it but don't know that much about the content. Its Tang Soo Do based isn't it? Do train in it Bushido58266?

I know Oyama wouldn't convert his style into another TKD, however I was just wondering whether he had any influence so far as showing Choi some techiniques/practices and then became part of ITF. If you look at the video I posted earlier there are bits and pieces like Oyama getting the students to fight in more of a cat stance than front stance. Top of page 753 in the 2004 edition.

O cool, but what about the picture in the book (if you have access to it). Its of Oyama and Choi alone together. In the book it also mentions that Choi invited Oyama to visit him.

Hehe she sounds awesome. When we first got my old german shepherd dog, my dad took him to these classes at the local community college where they did all these games in order to help establish control. Was just as much training the owner as it was training the dog. Maybe you could do something like that? The biting thing is probably just teething. You probably could give her some chew toys to control that. For the crying you kinda have treat them as you'd do with a baby. You have to know when to ignore it and when it is actually something otherwise they get too dependant on you for attention. You've got me wanting another dog now...

Hey Kalania, welcome to the forums! Its hard to tell how good a school is just based on their website. They could be an excellent school with great teaching and a poor website, or could be a great school that's really trying hard to draw in the crowd so their website may look a bit McDojo-ish. I think your best bet would be to try a couple of classes at each. Most schools will let you have a trial lesson and in going there you can experience first hand what the teaching's like and whether it suits you. You also get a chance to see the instructors first hand and find out whether they are genuine or not. As for the sites you listed, I tend to look at the photos and videos as an indication of what is taught. I wasn't overly impressed with any of them. But then again I didn't find anything that would stop me from going to have a look in person. Just asking, but what has confirmed that Ichiban Karate Studios is a McDojo? I had a look at their website and it didn't seem that bad. FYI, I've been doing TKD for around 8 years now. I weigh about the same as you (although I am a bit taller). Don't worry about it. You don't have to be fit to start MA, MA gets you fit as you train. Its never been a problem for me.

They look pretty awesome.

I do the same forms as bushido_man96. For that technique, we say it is checking block (although you could modify it slightly to be used for something else). Primarily checking a kick or attack coming upward towards the defender's lower abdomen/groin.. The idea for us is to intercept a front kick like attack, therefore the positioning of the arms are natural and not stretched or too bent (if that makes sense) and have to be so that you don't have to lean forward or backwards to reach the attacking tool. Otherwise you'd risk getting punched in the face and upper torso. This also allows for maximum body mass above the technique making it stronger (and easier to balance). You control the height of the technique with your stance, however in the x-stance that we would use in the Toi-Gye form, if you position you're feet properly there is a limit to how low you can go before the stance locks and stops you from moving. So in this context (Toi-Gye) I would say its only real application is the block, possibly followed by a grab on the leg but much better follwed by what's used earlier in the form, the twin punch. As for the jumping part of it, in Toi-Gye, you are not really gaining that much distance so you can assume that you are jumping upwards out of the way of a sweeping kick or similar motion before landing on the subsequent kick. Don't know how relevant this is to Heian Godan but it does bear some resemblance and there are some parallels between the Chang Hon forms and kata.

Actually reading the articles through, he didn't really do that badly. Fought quite a lot of big names. And he's 39, that's quite old-ish for a professional boxer.

Funnily enough tonight, while I was looking through some random websites, I came across the competition page for a certain org. Looking on the categories, there was a section for 1-7 year old 1st dans. Whilst generally I think there can be under 16 year old bbelts, that was a little too far for me.. that was until I scrolled a little further down and there was a category for 1-7 year old 2nd to 3rd dan! Little bit too much in my opinion. In my instructor's school kids can be promoted to 1st dan but in most cases they will stop at there until they are much older. So its kinda being a blackbelt but they can't yet advance through the blackbelt ranks. Having said that, there are a couple of exceptions but in these cases the "kids" are truly something else. Incredibly dedicated and mature in my opinion. They all have to test to the same standards as you would test the adults.

I've only really trained with famous TKD people. Got to train with GM Choi Jung Hwa once (Gen. Choi's son), he walked right in front of me and nodded at my front punch . Also did a 3 day seminar with M. Hwang Ho Yong who did a lot of the aerial kicks for Gen. Choi's encyclopedia.

Welcome! I train Taekwon-Do, namely ITF style but I wouldn't mind picking up something different at some point. Have done TaiChi in the past and want to get into that again when I have the time.

Congratulations!

Congrats!

You've got to admire his "never give up" attitude.